SIAKON MEDIA

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Bolgatanga (U/E), July 11, GNA - All the nine District Assemblies in the Upper East Region are to benefit from a 4,751,022.3 Ghana Cedis grant from the District Development Facility.

The facility is rated, based on the performance of Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies in the administration of good governance.

Mr Javis Avoka, Regional Secretary of Northern Patriots in Research and Advocacy (NORPRA), a civil society organization working to promote social justice and equity, announced these 

in Tamale.

This was when he and other members of the group called on Mr. Mark Woyongo, the Regional Minister, in Bolgatanga, to discuss the performance of the districts, regarding "the Functional Organizational Assessment Tools" (FOAT) test.

Mr Avoka explained that the facility, which is different from the District Assembly Common Fund, provides additional resources for district level development projects.

The NORPRA Regional Secretary said that the nine districts in the Region qualified for the 2009 FOAT test and commended Mr. Woyongo for his visionary leadership and hard work, which enabled the districts to qualify for the FOAT.

The Regional Secretary of NORPRA, Mr Javis Avoka said that each of the 9 districts had fulfilled the minimum conditions of FOAT and scored 60 per cent performance.

Mr. Avoka appealed to Government to consider poverty levels in the disbursement formula instead of distributing the "Entitlement Component" of the facility, based on equality, population and land area of the Assembly.

He said that NORPRA would assist in monitoring the judicious utilization of resources in the Region.

GNA

Tumu (U/W) Aug. 9, GNA - Sissala Literacy and Development Programme (SILDEP), a local non-governmental organisation, has assisted more than 1,000 women in the Sissala East District of with micro credit facilities to expand their businesses.

The NGO also provided the women with micro entrepreneurial skills in areas such as dressmaking, batik production, artefacts and other locally woven materials for both domestic and international markets.

Mr Moses Luri, Executive Director of SILDEP, told the GNA in an interview that this was part of the NGO's effort to empower women economically through the provision of literacy skills.

He said the project, which is being carried out in collaboration with the Sissala East District Assembly through the Business Advisory Council (BUSAC), had improved the livelihoods of many women in the district.

Mr Luri said 25 women were undergoing training in beads making and would be provided with micro credit as soon as they completed their training.

He said the NGO had acquired special designing machines for five women in the district who are having training in designing skills to enable them come out with products that would attract domestic and the international market.

He said SILDEP was also creating market linkages in the United Kingdom and the United States to help the women to export their products to the international market.

GNA